Frenetic ramblings from the start of the "War on Terror" logging my attempts to film outside Finsbury park mosque over 3 years and sitting through all the subsequent court cases. These days I write about whatever and generally stay out of trouble. Do visit Youtube.com/malungtvnews

April 24, 2014

Flashed onto a large screen for members of the jury to see, the map pinpointed a bin Laden home and said the Taliban had "45,000 troops plus the bin Laden bases and training camps."
Various extracts of the textbook, translated into English, were read to jurors detailing how to plant mines, wage sabotage and recruit youngsters aged 15-17, and leaders no older than 23.
"A person of this age is more receptive... and he is ready to sacrifice for it," according to the translated text.
Other titbits dealt with assassinations and kidnappings, with the advice: "Do not prolong the period of detention and start executing hostages" to show your zeal.

also, finally we get to hear testimony from Oregon! From a very colourful sounding witness:

...According to al-Masri’s lawyer last week, the camp was similar to being in the “Cub Scouts,’’ with the men riding horses, tending to little lambs and telling campfire stories. But Hatley said one of the arrivals, militant Oussama Kassir, boasted about previously running training camps in Afghanistan and being a “hit man” for Osama bin Laden. She said Kassir told her that al-Masri was his “leader” and that al-Masri sent him and others to the Bly ranch to create a “training camp” where men would learn to shoot guns, throw knives and do calisthenics along open, spacious fields abutting a ravine and desolate dirt roads. “He said he was there to train men for jihad,” she said. “He said that Abu Hamza sent him. He intended to train them to fight.”The visitors, she claimed, said the ranch resembled Afghanistan.
She added that some had CDs with information on how to make poisons to “kill people” and regularly “talked” about “robbing and killing truck drivers” on nearby roads.Kassir, she recalled, claimed there were plans to eventually dig a hillside compound at the ranch for al-Masri to hide out in.“I was shocked,” said Hatley, who claims she fled the ranch in fear in December 1999, four months after moving in. During cross-examination, al-Masri’s lawyer Jeremy Schneider painted the gun-loving Hatley as paranoid and having a shady track record.
She admitted to him under oath that she agreed to marry her husband after only their first encounter — and had tricked him into thinking she had money. She claimed she feared that Rule — who was married four previous times and had 18 kids — wanted to kill her and had “suffocated” his previous wife to death.When asked if Rule, al-Masri, Kassir or others who stayed at the ranch had ever threatened her, she said, “No, but I am still afraid.”Hatley went into witness protection in 2004 but was kicked out years later for telling one of her new neighbors her secret.
She was given a second chance, but the feds booted her again after she violated multiple rules, including driving with a suspended license...

April 20, 2014

Hamza was speechless for a moment – then smiled and said: “I am surprised that you would have come here.
"Very surprised.”

Mary asked to tape their meeting. Incredibly, Hamza agreed.

She said: “Our 15-minute conversation lasted nearly an hour.”

Hamza admitted providing a satellite phone for Abu Hassan and being in touch with him during the 1998 ambush.
He expressed regret for the deaths of the four tourists and insisted he had ordered the kidnappers to keep them safe.

Hamza told her: “We never thought it would be that bad.”

She also asked whether he wanted to turn Britain into an Islamic state.

Hamza replied: “I don’t intend everyone should be converted to Islam but the image of Islam has been distorted.
“Western countries want Muslim countries to be poor and weak.

“I want peace for those who love peace, war for those who love war.”

At the end of the interview, Hamza leaned forward and warned: “Do not go back to the south of Yemen.
"They will not bother with kidnapping foreigners next time.
“Rocket attacks on tourists will be next. From a hill, they can fire a rocket at a car. You will not see it coming.”

“Hamza said he could spare no more time and called on one of the youths sitting behind me on the floor to escort me from the mosque.
“I thanked him for his time and asked if I could follow up with him in future if I had more questions.
“He gave his mobile phone number.”

They were sent, he said, to a remote compound set a mile back from the nearest road and given money to accomplish their mission.
Kim said its purpose was to establish a training camp for terrorism, “a place for men to fight and to kill”.

The compound had nerve gas and explosives, and they learned how to shoot a gun and how to slit a throat, Kim said.
The prosecutor told the jury that the two men carried with them letters, one to Bin Laden and one thanking Hamza. He told the jury they would hear evidence showing how Hamza participated in the “terrifying” hostage-taking in Yemen, providing “crucial resources and guidance”.

Kim said the defendant had posted a message to westerners to “stay out of Yemen”, shortly before the hostage-taking. “Abu Hamza did not just post that warning about Yemen. He provided a satellite phone” and paid for additional minutes.

In 2001, when US soldiers were fighting al-Qaida in Afghanistan, Hamza sent two of his followers, including Feroz Abbasi, a British national who was detained at Guantánamo Bay, to fight.
He told the jury they would hear from an al-Qaida operative via video link about Abbasi in Afghanistan.

Kim said the jury would also hear from two women in Bly, into whose community Hamza sent two of his followers in the middle of the night. The two men, Kim said, carried money Hamza had given them to set up the camp, and a CD with instructions on how to make bombs. They dressed in black, carried knives, and one of them was so committed he brought over his wife and family.

Kim told them they would hear from two of the rescued hostages, including Mary Quinn, who managed to escape into the desert and who travelled to London two years later to interview Hamza at the mosque about the kidnapping. “Abu Hamza said it was justified.”
Dratel, Hamza's defence counsel, said his client did not participate in any of the crimes, “not in Yemen, not in Oregon, not in Afghanistan”.

Dratel said he “he never set foot in the US” until he was extradited.
Hamza was extradited to the US from Britain after an eight-year battle in 2012, following his conviction and imprisonment in the UK for inciting his followers to kill non-Muslims.

Dratel described his client as “his own man” and “an independent thinker” who was concerned about oppressed Muslim communities around the world.

He said Hamza's controversial views, which he had a right to hold, were not a crime.
Dratel said that in the late 1980s and 1990s, his client spoke up for Muslim communities who were being oppressed in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya.

Dratel said his client “needed to be outrageous” to keep the entire spectrum of appeal to his community.
“There's a third way between Osama bin Laden on one extreme and George Bush on the other,” he said.

Dratel told the jury that Hamza was relied upon by British intelligence to try to keep the situation non-violent. He said he had raised the alarm on the hostage-taking in Yemen.
He said Hamza had not sent anyone to Afghanistan, but had provided money for schools, charities and computers there. "He is not a follower of Osama bin Laden. He is not a follower of anyone. He's his own man.”

April 04, 2014

...One-eyed Hamza, who was extradited to the US from Britain in 2012, will appear in court next week in New York, and the city’s authorities fear another al-Qaida attack to coincide with the trial.
Security services including the CIA are said to have picked up a high level of “internet chatter” among Islamic extremists.
Rebecca Weiner, security chief for the NYPD, said: “We are attuned to the possibility that his upcoming trial may inspire more terror.”

She called Hamza, 55, a “star” among jihadists and said he had “helped radicalise dozens of individuals in both the UK and the US who went on to engage in terrorist acts”...

...John Miller, NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence also said officers in the city, where al-Qaida destroyed the Twin Towers in 2001, were on high alert but had yet to identify any “specific” threat.

Last month Hamza, 55, was branded a “terrorist leader of global reach” by the US government.
Prosecutors said he was so dangerous they wanted jurors to have armed guards...

They forgot to mention that coincidentally or not coincidentally the 7/7 bombing happened a day into his trial in the UK.